Tag: Concussion

Athlete concussion under-reporting and pressure from stakeholders

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By: Christine Baugh

As concussions are increasingly seen as a public health problem, under-reporting and under-diagnosis of concussion is recognized as one barrier to improving the safety of sports participation. A number of studies have previously characterized the extent of under-reporting of concussions among athletes, particularly at the collegiate level. Furthermore, existing research has examined the applicability of theories of behavior change to concussion reporting and created relevant frameworks for examination. Although a growing body of evidence suggests that reporting (or not reporting) a concussion is a decision actively made by the athlete weighing relevant factors, the extent to which interpersonal, intrapersonal, environmental, or policy factors influence athletes’ decisions about whether or not to report a concussion is not fully understood.

A recent study, on which I am a co-author, titled “Concussion under-reporting and pressure from coaches, teammates, fans, and parents,” published in Social Science and Medicine aimed to understand one possible contributory factor to athlete under-report of concussion: pressure on athletes from relevant stakeholders. (Abstract available here.) The survey-based study queried a sample of 328 athletes from 19 contact or collision sports teams (notably excluding football and hockey teams) at 4 colleges in the northeast region of the United States. Among other things, the study asked athletes whether they experienced pressure to return to play after a head impact, specifically asking about pressure from coaches, teammates, parents, and fans. Read More

Youth Sports at a Crossroads (and Project Play Summit streaming today 2/25)

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By: Christine Baugh

Youth sports participation comes with a variety of health and social benefits. The position statement put out by the American Medical Society for Sports Medicine (AMSSM) indicates that over 27 million individuals age 8-17 participate in team sports in the United States, and over 60 million participate in some form of organized athletic activity. These youth and adolescent athletes benefit from  better overall health as well as increased socialization and self-esteem. However, a recent report by the Aspen Institute’s Project Play Initiative indicates that there has been a significant decline in sports participation in recent years.

One factor influencing the decrease in participation may be parental concerns. A recent survey of parents conducted jointly by ESPNw and the Aspen Institute characterized these concerns finding a large percentage of parents were worried about the risk of injury, behavior of coaches, cost, time commitment, and the emphasis on winning over having fun. Concussions and head injuries were the most worrisome injury for parents in this study. Despite this concern, very few parents reported keeping their child from participating in sports due to this risk. The AMSSM position statement characterizes the preoccupation with specialization and competition within sports at such a young age as a risk factor for injury and burnout. Read More

Studies provide new insights into youth and adolescent concussion

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By: Christine Baugh

In the past several weeks there have been two studies with important implications for youth and adolescent concussions. They are summarized briefly in this post.

Post-Concussion Rest. Thomas and colleagues recently published a study in the journal Pediatrics examining whether standard of care (1-2 days rest) or 5 days of strict rest (both physical and cognitive) following concussion led to better short-term health outcomes in a population of 11-22 year old patients. The full text of this manuscript is available here. Expert consensus recommends strict rest –of relatively undefined duration — followed by a gradual return to cognitive and then physical activity. The study’s authors hypothesized that increased rest would improve outcomes, but found that the strict rest group did not have measurable health improvements compared to standard of care. In fact, symptom reporting was modestly higher in the strict rest group. Main study limitations include: small sample size and short follow-up period (which does not allow for insight as to longer term implications). This was the first randomized control trial of rest duration following concussion diagnosis in a youth and adolescent cohort, and the study added critical information to an important area of inquiry. Read More

Concussion laws lead to increase in health care utilization

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By Christine Baugh

Between 2009 and 2014 all U.S. States and the District of Columbia implemented concussion legislation. Generally modeled after Washington State’s Zachery Lystedt Law, most of these statutes require that youth and adolescent athletes are provided with information about concussions prior to sports participation, that they are removed from play if they are suspected of having sustained a concussion, and that they receive clearance from a medical professional prior to returning to sports participation. One of the main purposes of the Zachery Lystedt Law, and presumably those laws modeled after it, is to prevent the catastrophic neurological injury that can occur when a youth athlete returns to play too quickly following a concussion.

Gibson and colleagues recently published their study “Analyzing the effect of state legislation on health care utilization for children with concussion,” in JAMA Pediatrics. This study compared concussion care utilization for adolescents age 12 to 18 in states with and without concussion legislation using an insurance claims database. After controlling for potentially confounding factors such as median income and number of insured individuals per state, Gibson et al. found that states that had implemented concussion legislation had increased concussion care utilization (92% increase) compared to those without legislation (75% increase). The increases in care utilization were driven primarily by increases in visits to the doctor’s office and to a neurologist, not through increases in emergency department care, which the authors described as encouraging.

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Upcoming Fairness Hearing in NFL Concussion Litigation

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By Christine Baugh

On November 19, Judge Anita Brody will hold a fairness hearing in the class action lawsuit of National Football League (NFL) Players v. NFL re: concussion injury. This is one of the final steps toward final approval (or rejection) of the settlement in the case. Before final approval Judge Brody must determine that the settlement is fair, reasonable, and adequate for the over 20,000 retired NFL players who are included in the class. A variety of concerns have been brought forth publicly regarding the proposed settlement, which received preliminary approval from Brody earlier this year. Around 140 retired NFL players filed objections to the proposed settlement and around 200 have opted out of the class. This blog post provides a brief overview of the settlement and objections to it.

Settlement terms (summarized):

  • Monetary Awards for those with a qualifying diagnosis. Award amount is determined based on a sliding scale that factors in diagnosis, age, and years played in the NFL.
  • Baseline Assessment Program. Class members who are Retired NFL Players have the option to participate in a baseline assessment and medical monitoring program.
  • Education Fund will be established to promote safety and injury prevention in football.

The long-form settlement document can be viewed here.

Concerns (summarized, non-exhaustive): 

A variety of concerns regarding the preliminarily approved settlement have been brought forth through the media and other channels. These are the types of issues that will likely be discussed at the fairness hearing and that Judge Brody will have to weigh in her determination of whether the settlement is fair, adequate, and reasonable for the class as a whole.

Many concerns regard the categories of diagnosis that are eligible for compensation.

Compensable categories are too restrictive: Under the current settlement agreement, former players can be compensated if they have a qualifying diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s disease), death with chronic traumatic encephalopathy (between January 1, 2006 and July 7, 2014), and what are called Level 2 and Level 1.5 Impairment (these categories represent a pattern of performance on a battery of neurocognitive tests that is 2 or 1.7-1.8 standard deviations below normal, respectively). Some have argued that, although the categories included are important to compensate, there are other prevalent problems such as pituitary dysfunction, depression, and mood and behavioral disorders that are associated with repetitive head trauma and should also be covered by the settlement agreement. Others are concerned that there are characteristics about the existing categories that are problematic (see next two points below).  Read More

State Concussion Legislation: Variable Implementation

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By Christine Baugh

The most recent issue of the Journal of Law Medicine and Ethics (generously made available for free by the American Society of Law Medicine and Ethics) included several articles examining state concussion laws. One theme that arose across the articles is that although concussion-related legislation is on the books in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, the extent to which it is creating an improvement in youth and adolescent athlete health outcomes is unclear.

In their article titled “State experiences implementing youth sports concussion laws: challenges, successes, and lessons for evaluating impact” Kerri McGowan Lowrey and Stephanie Morain interviewed stakeholders (e.g., officials at state departments of public health, state athletic associations) at a majority of states with concussion laws in order to understand how the laws had been implemented. Although previous research in the area (see, for example: Hosea Harvey’s piece in the American Journal of Public Health) presented concussion legislation as relatively homogenous, McGowan Lowrey and Morain’s approach provided critical insight. They found that while the state laws are relatively uniform in their construction, there is substantial variation in their implementation. In particular, McGowan Lowrey and Morain reported variation in compliance with the statutes, variation in how much stakeholders were included during formative stages in the legislation’s composition, and variation in what constituted concussion education.

In another article in the issue, my colleagues Emily Kroshus, Alexandra Bourlas, Kaitlyn Perry, and I specifically examined the concussion education and acknowledgement provisions of state concussion laws. This investigation was conducted in two parts: first we examined what the statute mandated and then we examined what the high school athletic association and/or department of education in that state actually provided for education. Similar to McGowan Lowrey and Morain, we found that implementation did not always match statute. In some promising cases the education provided exceeded the information minimally required by statute. In other situations, the concussion information was provided in such a way that it was required to be returned with a parent signature. In cases like this, compliance with one part of the statute (mandating acknowledgement of receipt of information) may have been compromising another (providing concussion education). Although the education and acknowledgement tenets were relatively similar across states, more heterogeneity was found in the implementation of these aspects of the statutes.

In general, these two studies suggest that the approach for examining statute, and particularly its efficacy, needs to be designed to address implementation stage information. Strict examination of the statutory language obscures critical implementation-level differences. These concussion-related statutes, enacted now in every state, are ostensibly supposed to reduce risk and improve athlete health outcomes. The extent to which they are reliably accomplishing this goal is unclear. What is clear is that implementation of the laws, and enforcement in cases where schools do not abide by statute, are necessary precursors to consistent efficacy. Although it is important that all states have taken steps toward protecting the health and safety of youth and adolescent athletes, approving a statute is not the final step toward this aim. Further research is needed to understand what health effects the current laws are having and critically where improvements can be made in this important area of public health law.

[This post reflects my own views only.  It does not necessarily represent the views of the Petrie-Flom Center or the Football Players Health Study at Harvard University.]

Are we appropriately framing the risks of brain trauma in contact sports?

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By Christine Baugh

The recent concussion and sport special issue of the Journal of Law Medicine and Ethics (generously made available free by the American Society of Law Medicine and Ethics: HERE), edited by new Bill of Health contributor David Orentlichter,  includes a number of important works discussing legal and ethical issues related to mild traumatic brain injury sustained through sport. One of the most thought provoking articles in the issue is a piece by Kathleen Bachynski and Daniel Goldberg titled Youth Sports & Public Health: Framing Risks of Mild Traumatic Brain Injury in American Football and Ice Hockey. This piece delves into the important issues of cultural and normative influences on the framing (and thus public understanding) of the risk of brain injury in sport. At the heart of the paper is the assertion that, “The framing of risk is not a neutral, apolitical enterprise,” and that in the United States and Canada highly influential institutional actors such as football and ice hockey leagues have played a formative role in the cultural valuation of the risks inherent in these activities.

Bachynski and Goldberg provide a variety of examples where the overarching questions such as “Are contact sports too risky?” or “What is an appropriate level of risk?” are deferred for easier alternatives. Addressing more focal issues are: State concussion laws which mandate secondary prevention measures, advancement in protective equipment which promises to mitigate risk of injury, rule changes made by sports leagues which aim to make inherently dangerous activities somewhat less dangerous. Rather than addressing the broader risk questions, the implicit assumption in these more focused efforts is that risks are acceptable as long as they are managed. Through what Bachynski and Goldberg assert are concerted efforts on behalf of major stakeholders (e.g., major sports leagues), this has been the predominant frame for risk assessment in contact sports.

Unfortunately, this method of framing risks is not without consequences. Bachynski and Goldberg argue that this framing may alter our understanding of the scope of the problem as well as the most appropriate interventions or solutions. This frame may also inappropriately downplay the need to address the broader moral, social, and political questions that arise from concussions in contact sports. For example, the authors pose the following question, “At what age can players consent to risks of head trauma and associated elevated risks of chronic degenerative neurological disease?”

Answering this question could require a complex weighing of the scientific evidence of the long-term risk of neurodegeneration and balancing it against a variety of factors such as the paternalistic desire to control the population’s ability to partake in self-injurious behavior and the need to protect an individual’s autonomy. (We do, after all, regularly let individuals partake in other dangerous activities—e.g., downhill skiing or driving a car.) We would need to think about questions such as: Should we treat the risk of brain injury differently than bodily injury? Should the risk of delayed or chronic injury be weighed differently given humans’ known difficulty in assessing risk in the distant future? What does scientific evidence have to say about the nature of the risk across age ranges? However, under the current framing these questions are not the ones being addressed. Bachynski and Goldberg’s article elucidates the first step toward addressing concussions from sport: appropriately framing the problem.

[This post reflects my own views only.  It does not necessarily represent the views of the Petrie-Flom Center or the Football Players Health Study at Harvard University.]

Asking the Right Question about Football

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By David Orentlicher
[Cross-posted at HealthLawProf Blog and orentlicher.tumblr.com.]

In his New York Times op-ed today, former Denver tight end Nate Jackson explains why the NFL should prefer that its players use marijuana to medicate their pain rather than to rely on prescription drugs that can have serious side effects and promote dangerous addictions. Jackson explains quite effectively why he needed marijuana during his six-year career:

I broke my tibia, dislocated my shoulder, separated both shoulders, tore my groin off the bone once and my hamstring off the bone twice, broke fingers and ribs, tore my medial collateral ligament, suffered brain trauma, etc. Most players have similar medical charts. And every one of them needs the medicine.

But to ask whether players should use marijuana or legal drugs to treat their pain is to ask the wrong question. As I write in a forthcoming symposium on concussion in sports in the Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics, Read More

Parental Consent for Youth Contact Sports Participation

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As we enter into the fall sports season, it’s unlikely that a week will go by where we don’t hear the current buzzword in sports community: concussion. Whether in reference to an acute player injury, an untimely death, new or ongoing litigation, or rule changes in sport, the athletic community and the public are increasingly aware of the impacts of these brain injuries. Although much of the media attention is directed toward college and professional athletes, youth and high school athletes significantly outnumber their older counterparts and it is thought that they take longer to recover from these injuries.

A recent publication by Mannings and colleagues surveyed 369 parents of 5-15 year old full-contact football players in order to assess the parents’ understanding of concussion (1). Although the study does have limitations, its finding could have important implications. The parents surveyed were often missing critical information about concussions. For example, less than half of parents correctly identified that concussion is a mild traumatic brain injury. Additionally, none of the parents surveyed correctly identified all of the symptoms of concussion queried in the study. Although it is mandated by statute in the majority of states (2) that parents and/or athletes are provided with information about concussions prior to sports participation, the extent to which the information provided (normally in the form of an information sheet) is read, understood, or retained is not well understood.

Sports participation is associated with a myriad of positive physical, psychological, and social outcomes. However, it also comes with the risk of injury, including concussion. For youth and adolescents, parents play a critical role. Most often, children and adolescents rely on parental consent to participate in sports. Given parents’ role as decision-makers, and the finding of Mannings and colleagues, an important ethical issue that needs to be addressed is what level of knowledge should be required for parents to provide informed consent for their child to participate in inherently risky activities such as contact sports?

[This post reflects my own views only.  It does not necessarily represent the views of the Petrie-Flom Center or the Football Players Health Study at Harvard University.]

Ohio Joins In

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By Hosea H. Harvey, JD, PhD

Last week, Ohio joined the vast majority of states that have enacted laws designed to reduce long-term health consequences for youth athletes who suffer concussions (technically, traumatic brain injuries or TBIs) in organized youth sports activities.  Based on my research for an upcoming article “Reducing Traumatic Brain Injuries in Youth Sports” (forthcoming, American Journal of Public Health), it appears that Ohio has followed the lead of most other states by adhering to a common framework and (at the same time) has substantially innovated with respect to certain key provisions of such laws.

Most youth sports TBI laws are organized around three broad risk-reduction methods: 1) educating parents, youth athletes, and/or coaches, 2) requiring the removal of youth athletes suspected of having concussions, and 3) providing criteria that a youth athlete must meet prior to returning to athletic competition. Each of these methods are, in part, derived from legislation crafted after a tragic football injury to Zachary Lystedt in Washington, leading the state to pass the nation’s first such law in April 2009. (You can read the law on LawAtlas™)  Since then, adherence to the “Lystedt framework” has been a common feature of state-level youth sports TBI laws. In this fast-paced legislative environment, unprecedented in scope, Ohio is relatively late to the game. Yet, by moving later, Ohio’s deliberate speed has resulted in legislation that relies on the Lystedt framework but also contains innovations of uncertain efficacy.

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